December 11, 1982 SPAIN Hastening Slowly Peter O'Brien A LITTLE more than five years ago, in these columns (July 2, 1977), I had asked the question: is Spain moving towards socialism? The general election of October 28 has now given the Span- ish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), led by Felipe Gonzalez, a massive mandate for change. With 201 of the 350 seats in the Spanish parliament it has the constitutional and popular authority to initiate reforms but not to make a revolution. Those reforms will certainly be opposed by the right wing Popular Alliance, under one of Franco's former ministers, Manuel Fraga, whose support increased dramatically (jumping from 9 to 106 seats). With the .virtual electoral annihilation of the Communist Party (reduced to four seats) and what was previously the governing group, Union of the Democratic Centre (now down to a dozen representatives) the parliamentary panorama resembles the famous verbal portrait sketched so vividly in the 1930s by- Spain's great poet, Antonio Machado. There are still the two Spains. The one, embodied institutionally in the Church and the Army with their control over the educational system and the administration, believes fervently in hierarchical, centralised command. Its nationalism is a coat of a single colour
